Five Words
by Girl Who Writes
Summary: Set after the SuperS Special. It was impossible. She was not worth such a price. Would Michiru have left the world to destruction if she had died? Haruka & Michiru.


**Title:** Five Words  
**Author:** Girl Who Writes  
**Feedback:** If you feel so moved.  
**Characters:** Haruka, Michiru  
**Word Count: **  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** Drama, Romance  
**Summary:** It was impossible. She was not worth such a price. Would Michiru have left the world to destruction if she had died?  
**Notes:** My goodness, I was tired when I wrote this, but it doesn't seemed to have suffered too much. Set after the SuperS Special, written for SMMFC's August Challenge.  
**Disclaimer:** The characters of Sailor Moon belong to Toei, Bandai and Naoko Takeuchi. I make no profit from this fan-based venture.

* * *

She didn't know how Michiru could sleep so easily. She had simply folded herself into bed and curled herself into a peaceful slumber.

Haruka couldn't. She had tried, twisting the sheets of her bed into a tangle, tossing and turning.

The breeze off the water was cold and salty. Not unpleasant – never unpleasant – but it seemed to sting her skin, making her feel even more tired and yet more awake, more aware than before. The cold seeped through her pajamas, crawled up her limbs and left her stiff and still sitting on the balcony, staring out at the night sky.

_"Oh, maybe you misunderstood. A world without Haruka is hardly worth saving." _

The words had burned through the haze the puppet had brought on, Michiru's cultured voice dragging her back.

How had she inspired such faith? It made her want to get up, to shake Michiru awake and tell her she shouldn't, couldn't say things like that, hold such beliefs. It was impossible. She was not worth such a price. Would Michiru have left the world to destruction if she had died? How could Michiru consider that an even trade?

She didn't like thinking about the future. The past and the present stalked her enough. It was easy, living in the moment. Steal a kiss from a pretty school girl, win another race, survive another battle and bandage fresh wounds. It was too easy to look ahead and see herself trapped, losing, suffering, dying. Unhappy.

"You'll get sick again. And that hotel maid won't be around the fluff your pillows."

She looked up, Michiru standing in front of her, her eyebrows raised, a blanket over her arms. Haruka smiled at her, watching as the aqua-haired girl knelt beside her, wrapping the blanket around her – the way her hair tumbled over both her shoulders, her far-too-feminine and just-a-little see-through nightdress that she had to be cold in.

"Thanks. Did I wake you?"

Michiru sat beside her – close, but not touching her. "No. I can't seem to sleep alone in a room anymore. I'm used to the other person now."

Haruka ducked her head. "Michiru..." When she looked up again, the night shadows skittered away from them, Michiru's pale skin bright and icy-looking. She reached over and wrapped one arm around Michiru's shoulders.

"Haruka?" The musician curled against her side, her head pillowed on Haruka's shoulder.

"How... what you said, how could..."

The clouds drifted across the sky, blocking out the little light they had from the moon and stars, obscuring Michiru's gaze.

"It's how I feel, Haruka." Five words that said one hundred more. More than two years together, hunting Talismans. Michiru had never been like the other girls had been to her. Michiru was ... special for lack of a better word, never asking for more than she knew Haruka was ready to give – her confidante, her best friend, her other self. Someone she had almost lost twice, and yet they were still here.

Michiru's fingers twisted with hers as she settled against Haruka, twisting the blanket further around them both.

She didn't feel trapped with Michiru. She never had. Would anyone else have tolerated her flirting, with nothing more than a cutting comment and a dark look? Would anyone but Michiru have guided her, trained her and then sacrifice themselves for her?

Could she imagine anyone else in the passenger seat of her car; sitting out on a balcony at midnight, the wind sharp against their skin as she brooded?

A brush of a kiss on her cheek as Michiru got up to leave, her silence too long.

"Michiru."

A longer kiss, aquamarine hair twisting around her fingers, the ruffled sleeve of a nightgown sliding over a pale shoulder.

She understood. How could she not, when Michiru's white face, the Deep Aqua Mirror hovering over her still form, still haunted her; how Eudial's gun had been her only salvation? When she flinched and blushed when Michiru caught her with a swooning school girl? When she was alone, it was wavy aqua hair she looked for; the lilting, cultured tones she listened for.

The salty wind didn't sting quite as badly now, didn't freeze her skin quite as readily, with Michiru curled in her lap, one hand cupping her face and a knowing smile gracing her features.

"You don't have to say it, Haruka."

She had never expected this, but the truth was that was someone in her life who outweighed the worth of any duty, any freedom she had desired; that without Michiru, there wasn't anything about this world that she'd want to salvage, either.

She didn't need to say it.

But she wanted to.

* * *


End file.
